(let me be)
by sugar free vanilla
Summary: Let me be your six pm dinner date; your all night cuddles; your two am giggles; your three am sleepy kisses; your four am kisses as you fall asleep. Let me be your forever and always. Oneshot.


**This is a little (lot) different from anything I've written before but I'm kind of blocked and this change of pace seemed to help. Not sure about the result, but the process was fun.**

**Thanks Bogi for the beta and convincing me this is post worthy.**

**Based on a prompt from the castlefanficprompts tumblr: 'kbeckettcastlealways asked: (Caskett fluff) Let me be Your 6pm dinner date Your all night cuddles Your 2am giggles Your 3am sleepy kisses Your 4am pillow as you fall asleep Your forever and always'**

* * *

><p><strong>(Let me be your six pm dinner date)<strong>

Your face brightens as I step through the elevator doors, and I can't explain what that does to me, how it makes me feel; there is nothing more beautiful on this earth than knowing that I can elicit that joy in you, make you happy the way that you make me.

I plan on doing it for the rest of our lives.

"Hi, sweetheart," I say and perch precariously on the arm of my chair - I don't settle down because I'm hoping I won't be staying too long.

"Castle," there's a love letter written in your eyes as you say my name and I wonder how it was that there was ever a time I believed you felt nothing for me. "What are you doing here?"

"I was bored, so I thought I'd come and harangue you. Thought you'd maybe let me take you out to dinner if I irritated you long enough." I don't mention the real reason I've showed up - we both know. This case is getting to you, dragging you in deeper everyday, with every dead end and dried up lead. This is a rescue mission of sorts.

I'll always keep you from drowning, Kate.

"I think there's a flaw in your logic there, babe." You smile, a laugh in your voice and your hand coming to rest low on my forearm, fingers sliding along the ridge of my watchstrap and skimming my wrist; I don't think you even realise you're doing it; touching, being close, affectionate - it's all so natural for us now. The cool metal of your engagement ring presses against my skin as you slide your hand down to lace with mine for a brief, precious moment before you withdraw. "I don't think annoying me is going to make me want to spend _more _time with you."

Honestly, it'd be difficult for us to spend more time together if we tried - we spend nearly every night together now that you're pretty much living at the loft, so seldom sleeping at your own place without me, and it's only rare weeks like this when I'm tied down in meetings that I'm not with you at the precinct.

"Hm, not sure about that, love." I grin, that one I know infuriates you a little and riles you up a lot. "Worked didn't it? Got me the girl."

You lift your lips indulgently, that eye roll that I've come to view as a visible 'I love you' throwing your irises skyward. "How about we skip the bugging me part and go straight to dinner?"

This is what I was hoping for all along and you know it. I help you with your coat, sweeping the caught strands of hair out from under your collar. "Remy's?"

"Sounds great," you say, linking your little finger with mine.

**(Let me be your all night cuddles hi)**

You say you were never a snuggler before me.

Have you always been a cover-hog?

Still, I don't need the duvet - not when I sleep every night with your nose to my throat, every hot breath of hair against my skin sending a glow to my heart that warms me from the inside out.

I've taken to wearing long pajama bottoms now, though. God, your feet are freezing. Not that it helps; you always push up the legs while you sleep - at least, I think it's an unconscious action - curl your icy toes around my calf, the backs of my knees. Still, it's a small sacrifice for the way we lie in bed, tangled together in the most beautiful mess I've ever known.

**(Let me be your two am giggles)**

You're a strange sleeper - sometimes you're dead to the world, snorting and snoring (you can deny it all you want, but I'm the one who gets woken up by it on a weekly basis). Other nights, like tonight, you're unsettled, constantly drifting in and out of seemingly meaningless dreams and murmuring nonsense into the stillness of our bedroom.

I'm wide awake, a million plotlines calling my name yet none of them more alluring than the siren song of your presence next to me. You're just shifting into a drowsy wakefulness so I tease my fingertips through the valleys created by your ribcage, up and over the firm bone beneath the surface of satin. You squirm, ticklish and adorable, still half asleep. I do it again, and it brings you back to me fully.

That midnight giggle spills into the night, the one reserved for the dark, when the two of us may as well be the only people on Earth.

**(Let me be your three am sleepy kisses)**

We talk for the next hour, our hopes and dreams tripping clumsily from our tired lips and find tangibility in our love for each other.

You press closer to me, impossible so, our bodies already hopelessly intertwined and I can feel the beat of your heart. The slope of your nose presses to my cheek and I'm almost cross-eyed now, but your face is too beautiful to lose sight of. Sleep clings invisibly to your lashes it seems, weighs them down and makes every blink long, heavy. You tilt your head and your lips slide sloppily over mine, somnolent and without grace.

I think it's the greatest kiss I've ever had.

**(Let me be your four am pillow as you fall asleep)**

I expect you to drift off far more quickly than you do, especially when you breathe a plea for a story against the shell of my ear.

"Which one?" I ask, struggling to pick one from the vast sea of inspiration that almost pulls me under whenever you're near.

"Ours," you whisper, and I hold you closer.

You fight slumber and fix your eyes wide and open as you settle opposite me, foreheads kissing in the darkness. I'm not sure if it's the luminosity of your irises or my sight adjusting to the dimness but I can see them with a clarity I rarely find in the daylight hours.

"...and here we are," I finish.

"What's next?" It's slurred and jumbled, the words blurring into each other almost unintelligibly.

"What's next?" Dramatic suspense has been so ingrained into my psyche that I'm helpless to resist the rhetoric, the long pause after it. "Why, Kate - it's the happily ever after, of course."

Your sigh is soft, satisfied. Shifting down my body, you lay your cheek to my chest, over the point where my heart pounds out its glorious rhythm to the beat of your name.

You finally sleep.

**(Let me be your forever and always)**

No words can describe it, seeing you walk towards me on your father's arm, dressed in white. Maybe this wasn't our fairytale wedding, with the stars above us and the world at our feet but I think we've captured a truer enchantment than any that exists in childrens' stories. The people I love most in the world and the sky at our backs; there's nothing more in this world that I could, would ask for. Every need, every desire - here it is presented to me, the greatest gift that I've ever been given. I will never want for more than this - than our family (though, I know we both hope to expand it someday).

You told me once that you believe in the everyday magic of life - I scoffed, raved about the wonders of the possible. But I think we've found it together, our love the only magic that matters anymore.

It's been a long time coming but we've reached it, we've reached our forever. Our always.

* * *

><p><strong>I hope you enjoyed my procrastination, and hopefully I won't fail my Biology tomorrow because I wrote this instead of studying. Oooops.<strong>

**tumblr: castleholic**

**twitter: _sfv**


End file.
